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Pages of lost Plath romantic novel are found

PAGES and notes from an unpublished novel by the poet Sylvia Plath, inspired by her tempestuous relationship with Ted Hughes, have been discovered in crates of documents left by the late poet laureate.

The papers relate the life and loves of an American girl who moves to London to “find herself” and marries her poet lover. Some consist of notes jotted by Plath on the back of writings by Hughes, while others are typed passages.

The discovery of the papers has been welcomed by experts, many of whom believed the book had been burnt or did not exist at all. “It’s extraordinary, I heard rumours, but I didn’t know Ted had the papers,” said Elizabeth Sigmund, a close friend of Plath until her suicide in 1963. “I really thought what he’d described as fragments were the most we’d ever get.”